Word: traubel
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...stars Actor-Dancer-Singer-Comic José Ferrer in the life story of Composer Sigmund Romberg. As Ferrer plays him, Romberg is just Ferrer with a Viennese accent. When the story begins, in 1911, Romberg is a piano player in a Manhattan restaurant belonging to Anna Mueller (Helen Traubel); when it ends he has made the big time. This thread of a story sews together some patches and snatches from Romberg shows (Maytime, The Desert Song, etc.), most of them super-duper production numbers. Among the performers: Rosemary Clooney, Gene Kelly, Jane Powell, Vic Damone, Cyd Charisse, Howard Keel, Tony...
...frail. Kobayashi rarely leaves his villa near Takarazuka. except for a monthly visit to his theater. Next day he sends cryptic memos to the directors. He still manages to keep his musical empire humming, brings eminent Western concert stars to the town (e.g., Singers Marian Anderson and Helen Traubel, Violinist Yehudi Menuhin). Early this year, he will repossess Takarazuka's Tokyo branch, which the occupation forces had turned into the famed Ernie Pyle movie theater. Last week the old showman ventured forth to take in a special show with a Christmas finale. Sample lyric...
Updike's entry consisted of seven pieces of light verse. The longest of these, entitled "Reverie," was "a Miltonic treatment of television advertisement," Updike explained. His other work, mainly satirical, included one piece on Helen Traubel, one on "Yesterday's Socks," and another on Igor Stravinsky's statement that mountains don't mean anything...
Updike got him, though, and Updike's an honorable man. His "Supply is Unlimited" is excellent, and didn't he make poor Helen Traubel look silly. Good old Updike...but we can't rely on him much longer, so I would suggest grooming some of the other editors, like Limpert for instance. He seems to know a lot about cocktail parties, so we might have him do a parody on that Eliot play as a sequel to "Schnapps, Anyone." And have him make it lighter and more whimsical, as I am inclined to think the last a bit dull...
With Kirsten Flagstad, Helen Traubel and Lauritz Melchior departed from the Met, Wagnerian opera has gone into one of its periodic U.S. declines. From eight productions (including the four-evening Ring cycle) in 1940-41, the Met's offerings of Wagner now run to only about three productions a season. Meanwhile, Wagner fans keep their ears peeled for heroic-voiced artists to build up the schedule again...